A Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar (Gaekwad's Oriental Series No. 134)

No apology is needed for undertaking the compilation of the present Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar, which, although concise, is expected to meet the needs of Sanskrit scholars and research students of Vyakarana and other Sastras by serving as a useful reference book in their study of, and research work in, any branch of Sanskrit learning. The many independent treatises in the several Sastras and learned commentaries upon them, as also the commentaries on classical poems and dramas, are, in fact, full of grammatical explanations of words and constructions, involving liberal use of grammatical expressions and technical terms at several places. The elementary knowledge of grammar which a scholar of Sanskrit possesses is not found sufficient for his understanding fully the grammatical references in these books, especially so at present, when the practice of sending young boys to the Sanskrit Pithasalas to study the standard classical works with commentaries along with some standard elementary treatises on grammar, has already stopped. The number of Sanskrit Panditas and Sastrins, who had to obtain a sound footing in grammar before they undertook the study of the higher texts of the several Sastras, and who, therefore, could be consulted by young scholars and research workers in the several Sastras, has also diminished considerably. The usual Sanskrit Dictionaries such as those of Monier Williams, V.S. Apte, and others are found of no avail in supplying explanations of the grammatical technique which confronts modern scholars at every step in their critical reading of the several Sanskrit texts. Under these circumstances, it is only the technical dictionaries of the type of the present ' Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar' that can render valuable assistance to scholars and research workers in their reading of the higher Sanskrit texts in the Several Sastras.

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